DEVOTION: Just because you feel it, doesn’t mean you have to do it ~ by Ufuoma Daniella Ojo

Read Galatians 5:16 - 25

Jesus gave His life for us. Think about that. He didn’t just die or was killed. He actually gave up His life, knowing that He was going to die a criminal’s death. In the garden of Gethsemane, the rubber hit the road when He cried out to the Father to take the cup away from Him. In the end, as we all know, He crucified His flesh (figuratively, mentally, spiritually, the works) to do will of the Father.

I cannot imagine how He must have felt knowing (being God) exactly what He would have to face. The betrayal, the ridicule, the shame, the agony, the separation from the Father. But love; love for the Father; love for mankind compelled Him to push past His own self-preservation to obey God.

I wasn’t thinking about Jesus when I reacted to someone who I felt had treated me badly. I was justified in being angry, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. But then the Word of God has a way of getting to you. I tend to fall asleep listening to the Word and one night in the middle of the night Galatians 5:24, which reads, And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, reached into my subconscious and woke me up.

If I say I belong to Christ I have to crucify my flesh with its loud ‘feed me, feed me now!’ voice, wanting its own way. This scripture is sobering but also empowering. When you feel that you have to do something; that you are powerless to stop yourself, remembering that you belong to Christ let’s you know that you don’t have to act on your feelings.

We can do all things through Christ, which strengthens us.